Friday, August 18, 2017

Two new retro-modern frames on the market

After a torrid July its been quiet here in blogsville so far in August. With a new job and a few weeks of very smoky air - from the British Columbia wildfires- there hasn't been allot of time for working on bikes and after one ride in the smoke I decided to not ride again until it was gone. The smoke has finally cleared, so to speak, but I haven't been out on the bike yet.

The Ritchey road bike did get sold after one refresh of the CL listing and it went for full asking which was nice. I had grand plans to get two more bikes prepped and listed this month but I don't think that will happen.

One of those is the Motobecane Mirage, which feels like its about 50% done but still needs a few sessions to be close. And the other is the Raleigh mixte I picked up from bike works two years ago. I am just tired of looking at it and the plan is to spend an hour or so getting it functional and then pricing it to move.

I may not have been wrenching on bikes or riding them recently, but I am not blind to a couple of new arrivals. The first is the Rivendell Roadini which is in pre-order currently for $875 (frame-set). I was going to jokingly name this post my next bike, but even with a new job I have enough demands on my income that I won't be buying even a value priced Rivendell anytime soon.

I have lusted after Rivendell frames for nearly a decade and if I'd had more $$ back in 2009 the Handsome devil would have been a Riv Sam Hillborne. You may have noticed that I really like lugged steel frames and Rivendell still makes them that way. See the lovely seat tube cluster.

And fork crown. Usually after a pre-order the price goes up so I am not sure how long these frame-sets will stay under the $1000 mark.

The other retro-mod frame I have my eye on is the Soma Stanyan. This is actually a reintroduction of a bike that had been archived by Soma. The original had chromed lugs and a thread-less headset. I was very interested in them back then but the higher price tag (than a standard Soma road bike frame) and the thread-less stem put me off. I do like Soma's stuff and even built up and briefly owned a Soma Smoothie.

The Stanyan also has lovely lugs as you can see in the bb cluster and unlike its predecessor its build for a old school 1" quill stem. It's less than the Roadini but at an estimated price of $725 (frame-set) it's not cheap either.

I do have a number of parts that would look nice on either bike but I have no where near a full build kit and as I mentioned before my income has other demands on it. There is also the fact that I have four bikes already in the stable and the Roadini/Stanyan would overlap half my quiver. The Grand Touring/Passage combo already fill that niche and although I could build up either of the retro-mod frames as a stripped down go fast roadie, that is just splitting hairs. I really need a garage before I split hairs that fine lol.